Road to the Crown

Chapter 267: Lawmaking

3rd August 1574

"You must all be wondering, why have I called you here."

Seeing how undisturbed the faces of the small crowd gathered in my chamber were, I realised that I would never get to realise the dream of mine of saying those words to the people who would understand the joke. Rather than catching up, those high ranking development and army officers of mine focused themselves, waiting for the news that I was about to tell them.

"Ah, don't be so tense. While the matter at hand is important, it is by no means urgent. But while it's importance warrants calling you all here, I'm not going to waste the time on introductions anymore. In short words, I have the rights and means to officially locate the town, but to do so, I need a comprehensive set of laws on which this place will operate."

Despite lying on the bed and not even being able to look at most of the people gathered in the room, I could still tell how excited they got from those simple words of mine. But rather than understanding what I really had on mind, they were bound to debate whether we would use Magdeburgian, Lubecan, German or maybe Krakowian locating law, without realising that I was about to drop an entirely new bomb on their heads!

"Before you will start debating on which set of the common laws would suit this place the most, I need to make an additional announcement. Starting from the moment the location of the town will be official, all my private assets ranging from the employment deals with the workers, through the ownership of the land and buildings all the way to the profits generated by every single factory within its borders, will be donated to the newly created entity, the town's hall."

With the silence that suddenly covered the entire room, I could tell that even by announcing that I would be coming up with a completely new set of law, I couldn't surprise the people more than by saying what I just said.

But in reality, this was the only way to create a sustainable area that would keep promoting the new model of society across the entire country. I didn't know how long I have to live in this place and timeline. With how I couldn't even guess what was the reason for me to appear in this times, I had no way of deducing what would be the breaking point that would force me back to my original timeline!

As such, rather than focusing on amassing power directly in my hands, I decided it was a way better idea to set the foundations of something that future socialists and anarchists would hate to the bone while banking on it in every single day of their life.

A corporation.

"Sir With all due respect, but would you be as kind as to elaborate on what you mean by that?"

It didn't take long for one of the development officers that I never really had the chance to talk with to speak up and ask the question that was bound to bother everyone in the room.

"It's pretty simple. All the profits that this town will make, will go to the town's treasury. From those profits, all the costs of maintaining the current state of the city will be paid, all the investments aimed at making this place expand will be financed from said treasury In the end, only a small set amount will be paid each month to my private stash in form of rent, so that even if all my other lands will get burned down to the ground, my family will have the means to survive. But in reality, the matter of the gold is not as important, as what this notion entails for all of you. Elemo, start writing what I will say from now."

Gesturing at Al beside me, I banked on his help to change my position from lying flat to sitting on the bed with my back resting against the wall. With my leg still completely covered in stabilizing contraption, the space that I took in the room was quite big, but at least this position allowed me to see the reactions of the crowd to my words.

"Anno domini one thousand, five hundred, seventy-four. Third day of the August. The location of the city of New Tarnow is set, with the set of Tarnowian location laws regulating the rules of its governance."

Just like before, when the people in the room heard me dropping another bomb on their heads, rather than instantly going to whisper and chat about its meaning, they just turned silent. Even if I didn't interact with every single one of them on a daily basis, I was sure that the legends about my love for keeping my listeners tense was already circulating through the entire town.

"On the lands of any city located under the Tarnowian law, all men shant be equal in the face of the law. As the aim of those modern laws is to improve the standing on all those living under it, ignorance will be considered to be the greatest transgression, and won't be a reason to be excused from breaking the law!"

As I was not a lawyer myself, I could only use the experience I had from writing the rules for various chatting servers when coming up with the general rules, before I would rely on those officers of mine at filling the rest of the Tarnowian Laws Card.

"As it stands, there will be a distinction of three groups of people within the borders of the city located under this law. Citizens, Aspirants and Visitors, with the privileges and duties of each of them, specified below. You can stop writing now."

Figuring out how to counteract the constantly growing problem of the shrinking power of the middle class took me a long time. It wasn't that simple to just abandon the idea of the golden liberty that was the most important paradigm for the current political and societal system of commonwealth governance. But in this current effort of mine, I could at least rely on the wisdom of the descendants of this land, who would strive and create the very first constitution in entire Europe, and the second one in the world!

"Dear sirs, I know that you must be wondering what will be the rule that will set apart the real citizens from both the visitors and the aspirants. Or rather, who will be those aspirants in the first place? Let me explain you, my line of thought, before giving you the answer to that question though."

I hoped that by this time, the people gathered in my room would already start actively asking questions, pointing out problems and proposing their own stuff. Sadly, it seemed as if my reputation was simply too overwhelming for them, making this bunch unable to make the first step towards this achievement.

"The main line of distinction will be ownership of either a business or a house within the borders of the city or the areas specified as its development stages. Now you should understand why I was so keen at finishing the residential areas in the main part of the city first, but never stopped the construction of the massive living quarters for the workers. The idea behind this rule is to promote people to investing either in settling within the city, or starting their own businesses in the areas that the town hall will specify."

The greatest problem with the society of the Commonwealth, had two faces. Firstly, the nobility was above the law. As long as one was willing to act humble and either pay the compensation or spend a short time in the tower, then he would be free to do whatever he wanted unless it would involve another noble. But as bad as it sounded, it was actually the other point that brough the end to the commonwealth.

There was no drive to improve. 

With the lesser nobles taking over the position of the middle-class in the country, there was no reward in the society for striving to get richer without being a noble oneself. While town's folk could aim to become rich and use their influence to sit in the town's assembly, all the important positions would still be filled with noble sons of the country.

That's why, by giving a reasonable and concrete way for reaching for greater social status to the people, that was aligned with the interest of anyone attempting to develop one's lands, I could not only ensure that more and more people would flock to any land that would operate under the Tarnowian Location Law but with the growth of the importance and potential of those places, it would be only a matter of time before a citizen of my towns would be equal in power and status to a noble!

"As for both the city and the development stages, it's fairly simple. The city itself consists of the lands that are already operating on a stable basis. All people living and working there will be required to pay the tax of one out of ten of their income towards the Town's monthly treasury, with that money being used exclusively on improving the town itself and paying for its operating costs. As for the development staging areas"

At this point, rather than making a stop in my lecture to keep the situation tense, I had to take a momentary break to calm down my own excitement. Just my sheer imagination of what face the people in front of me would make upon hearing the next sentence of mine, was enough to bring me to the brink of collapsing from the joy!

"For as long as one's business will be approved and aligned with the Town's Hall guidelines, then it will be completely free from tax, and might even receive a loan from the Town's treasury on favourable terms. But if you think that this is all, then you couldn't be more mistaken. Even after the development stage will turn into an official part of the city, there will be a period of five years, during which the everyone living there will be free from the land monthly fee!"

With how I moved the ownership of all the city lands from my own possession to the city itself, any building, business or house would be required to pay a small monthly fee calculated from the average price of the buildings in that specific area or district. This could be considered to be the basic tax for all the people living in the city, be it citizens or the aspirants.

"And with all of that said, let's move on to what the privileges of the citizens will be!"